First piloted rocket got attention, but not success

Germans Plan First Rocket Flight With Pilot," the New York Times headlined the Associated Press story on Dec. 18, 1932.

"In an attempt to further the practical development of rocket flying," the story reported, "the city authorities, the police and the Governor of Magdeburg district have decided to grant permission for the first ascent of a rocket device occupied by a pilot."

The city of Magdeburg would contribute half of the $4,000 needed to build the 25-foot tall rocket; the Magdeburg Bank would loan the remainder.

"The rocket, which is expected to reach an altitude of 3,000 feet, is to return to the grounds by the means of a large parachute that unfolds itself automatically, and the pilot, after leaping out of the fiery sky ship, is to be brought down by a parachute," the Times stated.

Rudolf Nebel, a World War I combat pilot, was the rocket's "inventor," but at the time, he had little experience. Hermann Oberth had hired Nebel in 1929 to work in Berlin on rocketry for Fritz Lang's film "Frau in Mond" ("Woman in the Moon"). German ex-patriate Willy Ley wrote in "Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel" that Oberth "did not make certain whether Nebel had the qualifications," such as "in working with aluminum and magnesium alloys or at least with liquefied gases." According to Ley, Nebel later revealed "he had been graduated in a hurry during the war because he had volunteered for the air arm (of the military), and that after the war, he had never worked as a designing engineer but for some time as a salesman of mechanical kitchen gadgets.

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The German Rocket Society/Society for Space Travel, or VfR, would build what was called the "Pilot Rocket"; even though Ley said the passenger wasn't really a pilot "since he did not do anything" except "jump out with his own parachute."

Nebel was secretary of the VfR; Wernher von Braun and Oberth were members. Ley, Nebel, and Jacques Valier were two of the founders. Valier, in 1928, had built the world's first rocket car, funded by automaker Fritz von Opel. On Sept. 27, 1930, the VfR had begun using the Raketenflugplatz, a former German military base, in Berlin to experiment.

"Berlin now has a rocket flying field with an area of about two square miles," the the Times reported on March 8, 1931. The story mentioned "references in the German press" regarding "discussions of the possibility of rockets," and warned of the "extraordinarily dangerous character of the experiments now being carried on at the Berlin rocket flying field."

By October 1931, the VfR had developed a water-cooled combustion chamber to feed an aluminum engine that burned 160 gallons of liquid oxygen and gasoline per second for 200 seconds. Members next designed dual tanks to separately hold, and then feed, liquid oxygen and gasoline.

The Magdeburg rocket was not Nebel's idea. One day, Fritz Mengering, an engineer with the City of Magdeburg, "showed up at Raketenflugplatz espousing a crackpot theory (dreamed up by someone else) that the apparent form of the universe was an illusion and the surface of the earth was on the inside of a sphere!" Michael Neufeld documented in "The Rocket and the Reich" (Smithsonian/1995). "By developing a large rocket one could prove this thesis."

The theory, Ley said, "began like a story by Jules Verne.

A mentally decrepit 'philosopher' had written a badly printed pamphlet about the true shape of the universe, in which he insisted that the earth is the universe, that we live inside a hollow globe of the dimensions of the earth, that there is nothing outside that globe, and that the universe of the astronomers is only an optical illusion. Since every crank can find some fellow cranks, the "hollow-earth philosophy' had found some too, among them an engineer named Mengering. É He conceived the idea of testing the hollow-earth theory by means of a rocket. If a rocket going vertically upward crashed É proof would be established."

Von Braun, among others, "emphatically rejected the theory." Nebel, however, "saw this idea as a new opportunity for raising money." They would launch during the next Pentecost.

"It looked like something in which we did not like to see the VfR involved," Ley said.

They didn't worry for long. Ley pointed out Nebel informed them the project "was to be entrusted to him personally (and) not the VfR," even though the members would be the labor.

It was Mengering who convinced Magdeburg to fund the project even though the government didn't buy the Hollow Earth theory. Ley said they did "welcome scientific achievement," and the rocket would be "the crowning feature of a kind of city-wide holiday" during Easter 1933.

The Magdeburg Project failed. Neufeld, in "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War" (Knopf/2008), called Nebel "more of a con man than an engineer."

"We all began to work feverishly although we knew that it would be impossible to get such rockets ready in the time interval agreed upon," Ley wrote. "But it meant an opportunity to build large rockets without being handicapped by lack of funds."

The VfR began building at Christmas 1932. A motor was tested on March 9 and "could be heard for miles," Ley said. A test three days later "exploded at the instant of ignition; the concussion was so bad that the eyeballs of the observers pained considerably." Another motor exploded on April 3.

At a June 9 launch, Ley said "the rocket began to rise slowly" up the 30-foot "launching rack É built in a cow pasture." The rocket never cleared the rack, and simply slid back down. "Another attempt two days later was spoiled by a leaky gasket." The engine "roared" for 2 minutes but never developed thrust. A June 13 launch "ended prematurely" when the rocket, rising only to six feet, "popped" a vent screw.

On June 29, because rain "had warped the wooden launching rack," the rocket caught as it came off the guide and launched "almost horizontally," making a "belly landing 1000 feet" away.

The Magdeburg government wasn't impressed.

"In return for partial fulfillment of his promises," said "To A Distant Day: The Rocket Pioneers" (University of Nebraska/2008), "Nebel received only partial payment."

Michael Shinabery is an education specialist and Humanities Scholar with the New Mexico Museum of Space History. E-mail him at michael.shinabery@state.nm.us.

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